Rockford woman attends Vatican ceremony, says ‘it just made me cry’

Janet Bedin of Rockford was one of about 6,000 people to receive an invitation from the Vatican to attend today’s canonization ceremony for Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

Bedin, a member of Rockford’s St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, had a bird’s eye view of the ceremony from her seat in the loggia of St. Peter’s Square.

The ceremony lasted about two and a half hours, Bedin said. It was magical from start to finish.

“When Pope Benedict walked out, all around there was the smell of incense, and Pope Benedict and Pope Francis embraced,” Bedin said. “It just made me cry. There we were with four popes present — two popes up in heaven and two down below on the square.”

The only aspect of the ceremony that surpassed the beautiful music, Bedin said, was when Pope Francis read the proclamation of sainthood for the two popes. The clouds that hung heavily over the Vatican all morning parted slightly letting a couple of small beams of sunlight through the overcast skies.

“It gives me goose bumps just talking about it,” she said. “It was like a movie.”

Bedin attended the ceremony with the former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Jim Nicholson, and his wife. Nicholson also served as U.S. Secretary for Veterans Affairs under President George W. Bush.

Bedin will attend another Mass at the Vatican on Monday, celebrating the sainthood of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

The canonization ceremony was “so spiritual,” Bedin said. “We’ll never see anything like this again.”

All day, Bedin said, she thought about her mother, Dolores Bedin, who died in 2011. Bedin and her mother met Pope John Paul II in Rome in 2000.

“It made me cry to think that she was touched by a saint,” she said. “I hope she saw him up there today and was able to say, ‘Remember me? We met on the square. My daughter is down there today.’”